Football fans were more divided than united on Wednesday morning when tickets to the showdown between English Premier League giants Manchester United and the A-League All Stars were snapped up within two minutes of going on sale to the public at 9am.

Supporters scrambled to secure their spot at ANZ Stadium for the July 20 clash, but the online rush meant many were placed in a queue to access the Ticketek website, which struggled under the heavy load.

It was a disgrace. I hope in the future you are not permitted to have the rights to sale for such a big event

They were greeted with a message that said: "A major event has gone on sale today. You are currently queued and will be automatically redirected to ticketek.com.au as customers leave the website."

Star player ... Manchester United's Wayne Rooney. Photo: Getty Images

A Football Federation Australia spokesman said today's public allocation of tickets, understood to be about 15,000, sold out within two minutes.

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"It's been an amazing response from the Australian football community and this match unfortunately could have been sold out several times over, but we have had the opportunity to put this single match on," the spokesman said, adding that it was a great coup for Sydney to host the match.

Some football fans complained that the Ticketek website crashed when they attempted to pay, and vented their fury on Twitter and flooded Ticketek's Facebook page with negative comments.

This message was posted on Ticketek 's Facebook page.

"Was so excited for the man Utd game in Sydney. Thanks a lot. You just ruined my year," tweeted @sandeepn133.

Another person, Ben Nichols, wrote on Ticketek's Facebook page: "I want to lodge my absolute disgust and disappointment at trying to get tickets for the man utd game ...

"Thanks for ruining my day and my sons dreams [sic]."

World class ... Robin van Persie, pictured here scoring for Manchester United against Manchester City on Sunday. Photo: AP

Sarah Brooks wrote on Facebook that she was "appalled at your website and the way it has failed to supply the purchase of Manchester United football tickets".

"To be able to world class elite football team like that of Manchester United play in Australia, you should have done your research and been able to handle the demand. It was a disgrace. I hope in the future you are not permitted to have the rights to sale for such a big event."

Eileen Yong wrote: "Not impressed at all with your ticket sales for Man United v A-League All Star. Please explain why I can't even get 1 ticket at 9am? How many tickets actually went on sale today? What an absolute joke your website is."

Ticketek displayed this message on their website this morning.

Meantime, some lucky fans gleefully tweeted that they would be in the stands to see the football superstars, including Wayne Rooney, Robin van Persie, Rio Ferdinand and Nani.

The FFA spokesman said pre-sale tickets went on sale yesterday for fans who were registered with the FFA. He said some tickets would go back on sale in late April, and fans could sign up to a waiting list on the FFA website.

More than 25 tickets to the match were already selling on eBay this morning, including two category A tickets with a bid of $2200 at 10.30am.

On its Facebook page, Ticketek said it was aware that scalpers were selling tickets online.

"We are aware of the tickets being sold on auction sites but we can't guarantee these tickets are actually legitimate unless the exact seat number and section numbers can be identified. We continue to work with the promoters and the venue to do everything we can," the post said.

The FFA spokesman said scalped tickets bought on sites like eBay could be cancelled.

A Ticketek spokeswoman said she could not comment on how many people visited the Ticketek website this morning or the problems reported by visitors, other than to say that a waiting message was displayed when high volumes of people were visiting the website.

The match is expected to generate an even greater level of hype than the 2007 visit of David Beckham's LA Galaxy, who played Sydney FC in front of more than 80,000 fans at ANZ Stadium.

Several A-League players, including Brett Emerton and Archie Thompson, are likely to be unavailable for the fixture as it clashes with the Socceroos' East Asian Cup campaign in South Korea.

NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell trumpeted the coup as a win for his state over Victoria and Queensland and claimed an approximate $3 million investment would provide an economic boost of around $16 million.

152 comments

The credit card charges by Ticketek are criminal! O, don't forget the "pickup fees" for going to a ticket office and collecting a printout. SHAME!

Commenter

Chucky

Location

Sydney

Date and time

December 12, 2012, 12:19PM

Agree, and I Secured 4 tickets, but then wanted to go back to 2 tickets and they through me back in the waiting pool...now i have none! Stupid Website doesn't work. This happens for every single event

Commenter

STeve

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

December 12, 2012, 1:37PM

The fee is same too if the event allows emailed tickets YOU print....I dont get that at all. Thats a rip off

Commenter

Paul

Location

Sydney

Date and time

December 12, 2012, 2:22PM

Scalping has been aided by the FFA and Ticketek refusing to run ballots for such limited ticket events with high demand. The same goes with special codes and presale. Get real, have a decent ballot system to access a guaranteed seat at a later date and there goes the scalpers pay day!

Commenter

JackDiego

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

December 12, 2012, 3:09PM

The fees and charges on top of ticket prices are ridiculous (what a rort!) - and the way the website failed today with this ridiculous intro screen was another descent further into the gutter for Ticketek's already rubbish customer service. These twits shouldn't have the rights to run a chook raffle - let alone ticketing for major events.

Commenter

Ticketeked

Date and time

December 12, 2012, 3:18PM

Don't worry, some of the er, black sheep 'football family' members will re-release their tickets to the general public. At a premium.

Commenter

distant relative

Date and time

December 12, 2012, 3:45PM

Why is Bazza going on about what a coup for NSW this game is when only 15,000 tickets went on sale to the general public?

ANZ Stadium holds 83,500, so who the hell is getting the other 68,500 seats? Barry's mates?

Commenter

Thriller

Date and time

December 12, 2012, 12:20PM

No, they were sold to members of the FFA Football Family the day before the public sale. the Football Family are football fans, players and spectators. grass roots football participants. you should join up http://www.footballaustralia.com.au/footballfamily-signup

Commenter

davec

Location

Newtown

Date and time

December 12, 2012, 12:56PM

I understand a lot of people are disappointed that they didn't get tickets but the pre-sale was yesterday morning from 9am. I looked into it the day before and found out you needed to register with FFA and get a password to access the pre-sale tickets. So that's what I did! I was on the website 5 minutes before it opened and got through right on 9am with the password. I wanted 2 tickets and had the choice of 3 different locations so chose the best ones. It pays to be prepared when purchasing tickets to an event like this because they are in such high demand of course they will sell out. It was the same a few years ago when I wanted tix to Metallica and ended up in front of stage. The only thing I can think of is if Ticketek actually staged releases of tickets over a week instead of one day. Hopefully RVP gets a hatrick!

Commenter

ecowarrior

Location

Sydney

Date and time

December 12, 2012, 1:03PM

Same as ecowarrior - 6 yr old son is a registered player with FFA, got the code in an email the day before and got on yesterday with no issues.

If I'd been shut out today - I'd probably be disappointed too...but it doesn't take much to understand that you can't have 10,000 people all at the front of a queue